HomeLight closes on $100M Series D at a $1.6B valuation as revenue surges

HomeLight, which operates a real estate technology platform, announced today that it has secured $100 million in a Series D round of funding and $263 million in debt financing. Return backer Zeev Ventures led the equity round, which also included participation from Group 11, Stereo Capital, Menlo V

Kocomo raises millions to give people a way to co-own a luxury vacation home

Who doesn't want a vacation home? Right. That's what I thought. Kocomo is a Mexico City-based startup that wants to help make that dream a reality. And it has just closed on $6 million equity and $50 million debt financing to advance on that goal. The company aims to allow f

Diversifying startups and VC power corridors

Startups have a seemingly intractable problem: a lack of diversity. Despite research showing that diverse founding teams have a higher rate of return than white founding teams, one characteristic of startups remains relatively unchanged: the dearth of BIPOC and women founders, investors, board memb

Extra Crunch roundup: Pre-pitch tactics, Warby Parker S-1, Israel's fintech ecosystem

Forget what you’ve heard: There are many shortcuts to success. Tapping into someone else’s experience is a tried-and-true method, which is why two-time Y Combinator participant Chris Morton wrote a guest post for Extra Crunch with advice for founders hoping to be accepted by the famed a

Andreessen Horowitz just rolled out a $400 million fund that’s expressly for seed deals

Andreessen Horowitz has begun to announce new funds almost as routinely as some startups have begun announcing follow-on rounds. After announcing a third biotech fund in February 2020 that’s currently investing $750 million, a pair of new funds totaling $4.5 billion last November and, most re

It’s time for the VC community to stop overlooking the childcare industry

Square. Uber. Zillow. Airbnb. Besides being some of the biggest technology companies, what else do these titans have in common? They all operate in entrenched, highly fragmented, geographically localized and regulated industries. That means they required a lot of upfront venture capital investment

Givz raises $3M in seed funding to make donations a marketing tool for businesses

Givz, which has developed an API-powered platform that gives brands a way to convert discounts into donations, has raised $3 million in seed funding. Eniac and Accomplice co-led the financing for the New York-based startup. Additional investors include Supernode Ventures, Claude Wasserstein of Fine

Fontinalis Partners, the early mobility-focused VC firm, rolls out a third fund

Fontinalis Partners, a 12-year-old, Detroit-based venture firm that was among the earliest early-stage venture outfits to focus squarely on mobility, has collected $104 million in capital commitments for its third and newest fund. Investors in the vehicle include Ford Motor Corp., whose executive c

Taking consumer subscription software to the great outdoors

The pandemic has been extremely painful for many. But as lockdowns lifted and people began resuming their outdoor hobbies, mobile-first businesses have seen growth accelerate as consumers turned to digital tools to improve their time outdoors. The Dyrt, for example, is the top camping app on the Ap

Extra Crunch roundup: The Nuro EC-1, early-stage growth tactics, understanding Salesforce+

In 2010, Google’s autonomous vehicle project placed self-driving cars on Bay Area streets and freeways, but practical applications were thought to be at least a decade away. The futurists were right on schedule: In 2020, Mountain View-based Nuro was testing its second-generation R2 robotic ve

Carta says it just used its own product to establish a new — and far higher — valuation for itself

Carta, the nine-year-old, San Francisco-based cap table management and valuation software company, just raised $500 million in its eighth round of funding, at a $7.4 billion valuation. That’s more than double where the company was valued eight months ago when it closed its seventh round of fu

Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital has raised $800 million to “keep unf*cking the planet”

Lowercarbon Capital, a climate-tech focused fund founded by longtime investor Chris Sacca and his wife Crystal Sacca, has closed on $800 million in capital, Sacca announced today in a post on the firm’s site. According to Sacca, the commitments came exceedingly fast — in “just a f

3 lies VCs tell ourselves about startup valuations

I'm frequently asked by journalists whether I think venture capital valuations are too high in the current environment. Because the average venture capital fund returns only 1.3x committed capital over the course of a decade, according to the last reported data from Cambridge Associates, and 1.

Construction tech startup Agora raises $33M in Tiger Global-led round amid 760% YoY ARR growth

Agora, a startup that has built a materials management platform for contractors, has raised $33 million in a Series B round of funding led by Tiger Global Management. 8VC, Tishman Speyer, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Michael Ovitz, DST, LeFrak and Kevin Hartz also participated in the financing, whi